Win 2k registry problem-wont boot, can someone please help....desperate

[Kookstick]

Today I took the cover off my case to clean the dust like I do every once in a while. I try to boot and get a blue screen after the win2k splash screen comes on and it says: Stop-registry file failure.cannot load the hive file system root\system 32 root config\ software . may be corrupt, absent or not able to write to. Something like that. Anyways I have not done anything out of the ordinary to my system. I have hit F8 and entered the advanced settings and can't seem to get it to boot(not even in safe mode).tried "last known good config".I have no idea what to do. Anybody out there ever see this blue screen and have any advice. I have recently made a backup of my entire registry but can't get to it, its in my doc's.Unfortuneatly I don't know dos commands much. Is there something I can try? I really need this system running and it couldn't have done this at a worse time. Thank you for any help.

[Kruzin]

I'd start with pulling the cover back off, and checking all cable connections and card seatings. Something may have been accidentally partially unplugged during the cleaning.

[Rags]

I think Kruzin is on the right track. I used to get this error on my old box when the CPU fan was failing. Make sure your CPU fan is working, and all the other fans are going okay. Check all the other cables carefully too.

Rags

[RAB]

Make sure your memory sticks are all the way in their sockets. You might have hit one of the retaining clips when you were cleaning inside your box.

RAB

[Rick]

What you can also try is to boot with the Win2k setup CD. Once setup starts one of the options will be "Repair current installation" or something similar. It'll help if you made ERD disks, but it may still do the job.

[Kookstick]

Thanks so far, here's where i'm at now.I 1st checked and removed and reinstalled all my cables,p3 processor,memory sticks and nothing still. I did make a win 2k repair boot disk only 2 weeks ago, I booted with the cdrom and selected repair current installation and it prompted me to put in the disk so I did, it installed off the disk and rebooted. Now everything works EXCEPT it has lost all my settings, its like a new os was just installed. All my programs are there,just nothing in my docs ect...I looked in the c drive under documents and settings and there is administrator,jason(thats me), Jason1, and guest. I need to boot with the jason as default but it chooses jason1. I am so close I can see it I just can't log on as it. I have never set any passwords so I keep flipping thru the different users but cant seem to get the one that has all my settings. I've been to control panel and been all thru the users folder. Almost there but just not quite there yet.

[birdy]

I had exactly the same problem. i would do a complete reinstall and then a week later it did it again. I concluded that it was a problem with my hard drive and got rid of it. It hasnt happened again,yet. the only solution i came up with was to insall everything and backup the file that went corrupt. the next time it went tho a different file from the same folder went!

Bloody things these computers. for once tho i was glad off the win98 dual boot